298 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



" come over " to the best of their ability. In this 

 way we make fair bags of Partridges, and as the old 

 birds lead the coveys, and are therefore the first 

 to suffer, we are strongly of opinion that this method 

 of shooting tends to the increase of the species, as a 

 superfluity of two- or three-year-old birds is certainly 

 " bad for the breed," and in the neighbourhood of 

 Lilford the number of Partridges has increased in a 

 very remarkable manner since we took to " driving," 

 in spite of several most disastrously unfavourable 

 seasons. 



Our Partridges have innumerable enemies, of 

 which a wet hatching-time is undoubtedly the worst, 

 but straying and hunting dogs who put the sitting 

 birds off their nests, the mowing-machines which 

 mangle and immolate old, young, and eggs by dozens, 

 rats, foxes, stoats, all the members of the genus 

 Corvus, to whom eggs in any state seem an irresistible 

 temptation, and Sparrow-Hawks, who will clear off a 

 whole brood of young birds in a very few days, to 

 say nothing of idle and thieving lads, all have to be 

 taken into consideration by those who, like ourselves, 

 have been and are more anxious about our breed of 

 Partridges than any other game. It is rather the 

 custom of gamekeepers to put everything down to 

 " them cussed foxes " ; but although a vixen with 

 cubs has an undoubted predilection for Partridge 

 eggs on the point of hatching, we have very good 

 reason to believe that many delinquencies now laid 

 to the charge of this sacred quadruped are really to 

 be attributed to other and more abundant vagabonds. 

 We have omitted the cat, the weasel, the hedgehog, 

 and the snake from the above list of foes to the 

 Partridge, as the first does not, to our knowledge, 



